Copyright governance of algorithms?

Much has been said in recent years about the importance of copyright exceptions, limitations and other balancing tools to ensure end-user rights and access to culture, particularly in the discussions involving Article 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. However, oversight mechanisms are also necessary to ensure that these tools are effective and to hold online platforms and other digital services accountable. In this context, algorithmic transparency has been presented as one of the main policy solutions to ensure this, especially when it comes to content moderation activities. This chapter explores the key legal developments in the EU digital regulatory framework to analyse how much oversight already exists over content moderation and recommendation algorithms used by digital services. Attention is drawn to recently adopted algorithmic transparency rules in copyright law, privacy and data protection regulation, artificial intelligence (AI) regulation and platform regulation, with a special focus on the DSA. This chapter shows that the policy debate and regulation surrounding algorithmic transparency and copyright is evolving around other legal domains rather than copyright. It identifies a legal gap in relation to streaming services and, to a lesser extent, recommendation algorithms. It then raises the question of whether copyright has a role to play in this matter, whether to empower copyright users or to protect the interests of creators and rightsholders.